Belief
by JerBearThompson
Summary: She sometimes feels like something's passing her by but Uncle Jack will occasionally ruffle her hair and say all things come in time and she'll know what she needs to know, when she needs to know it. - AU, Gwen's point of view.


**Title: **Belief  
**Author: ****jerbearthompson**  
**Rating: **G  
**Warning: **Insane, old-time, Gwen-and-Owen-are-Ianto's-children AU.  
**Characters: **Jack/Ianto, Gwen, Owen, Toshiko  
**Summary: **_She sometimes feels like something's passing her by but Uncle Jack will occasionally ruffle her hair and say all things come in time and she'll know what she needs to know, _when_ she needs to know it._  
**Disclaimer: **I take no credit for the mess they made it.

**Notes: **Okay, so… I haven't posted anything in forever. That's not to say I haven't been writing, I've got about 20K of unfinished stories lying around, that I just don't have the inspiration to finish. This was an odd idea that wouldn't leave me be. I was intending it to be… almost completely different to this but once I started writing my muse just took me off in another direction. It's a different writing style for me, I hope it sounds okay. It's short because for once I wanted to finish, although I sort of cut it off very abruptly. Well… I hope it's alright. Happy Australia Day, everybody!

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_"Jem and I always thought it funny when Uncle Jack pecked Atticus on the cheek; they were the only two men we ever saw kiss each other."_  
– To Kill A Mockingbird

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**1934.**

Toshiko from down the road says there's something terribly odd about the Jones family and as soon as the words have left her mouth Gwen wants to shout foul things because _no one_ talks about her family that way. But Tosh is her best friend and she loves the Asian girl dearly so she bites her tongue and stands rigid, her narrowed eyes portraying what she forbids her mouth to say. She's feeling proud of herself because Tad always says that sometimes it's best to surpass someone's offending comments and just keep your own quiet thoughts to yourself. He says it's called maturing, and if Gwen wants to grow into a lady she will have to abide by maturing's rules. At the age of eight Gwen, has no such desire to become a lady. She's too fierce and stubborn to let gender or manners or _anything_stand in her way.

'He's not odd,' Gwen tells her friend calmly. 'He just won't let nobody dictate his way of living, is what.' She'd heard Tad say something along those lines on the phone once, and hopes that in repeating the words to her young friend it will make her look intellectual, like she knows exactly what she's talking about. Of course, she knows in her mind exactly what she's trying to say, she just hopes the words follow that meaning.

'Won't let _anybody_,' Tosh corrects her, and she bites her tongue again because the Asian girl's tone is not condescending, and she knows that had she been home, Tad would have corrected her also. He tells her you gain more respect when you know how to handle your words correctly. She wants more than anything in the world to be like her Tad so she quietly corrects herself and Tosh smiles at her.

'Well,' Tosh shrugs, 'my mamma says there's something odd in the way that that uncle of yours is always coming to stay. She says old Mrs Cooper from down the road knew your tad's mamma and says that she only had two children and the other one I know is your Aunt Rhiannon.'

'No offence to your mamma but she's got no right sticking her nose in other people's family business. Uncle Jack's as much a part of my family as Owen is - and no one would dare claim he ain't my brother. Isn't,' she corrected herself quickly.

After that Tosh seems quite upset and says tearfully that she _was only sayin'_before going back to her house on the pretence of chores to do. Gwen scuffs her shoes against the asphalt and resolves to slowly trudge back to her own house.

It's unfair, Tosh saying that. Gwen's never thought too much about whether Uncle Jack is really Tad's brother or not, but he's been there her whole life and he brings her a new book to read every time he comes home and he lets Gwen sit on his shoulders at Owen's ball games so she can see the field and that merits him as an uncle in her eyes. She loves him almost as fiercely as she loves Tad and she'll be rightly damned if she lets anyone speak against him.

Uncle Jack comes home – and Gwen doesn't know where he lives when he isn't here but he always seems too happy stepping off that train for here not to be considered home – twice every year; from December through to the end of February, and then from June through August. He always has tightly wrapped packages under his arm for Gwen and Owen and more often than not he'll have some terribly boring piece of literature for Tad. But Gwen has seen the extent of Uncle Jack's many, many faces, and he never looks so happy as when he's awkwardly clapping Tad on the back in a one-armed hug and pressing his lips quickly to Tad's cheek, so soft it was barely even there.

Gwen never thinks too much into it and she's sure Owen doesn't either because Jack kisses them both on their cheeks too and Tad does the same to Aunt Rhiannon when he sees her, so Gwen just presumes this is a natural greeting. If sometimes in the safety of their own home Uncle Jack kisses Tad's lips instead of his cheek, Gwen can see nothing odd about it - nothing that merits worrying, anyway. She lives by Tad's words as though they are a bible.

'We live in a peculiar world,' Tad had told her one night, hands methodically tucking the blankets in around her. 'It's full of discrimination and opinions and life never quite turns out how you want it to be.' Tad often uses big words but Gwen doesn't mind because it's how she learns, and she soaks up everything her Tad tells her, storing it away for future reference. 'People will force their views onto you but you stand your ground. You're strong, my girl. Believe what you wish to believe and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There are the world's morals and then there are your personal morals. Hold them close to your heart and live by them, but you've got to be careful. Sometimes I feel this is not a world for children.'

'But I'm not a child anymore, Tad,' Gwen had told him solemnly, and he had smiled gravely.

'That's right, you're not. You're a young lady now,' and he had kissed her forehead and turned out the light.

So Tad and Uncle Jack are two very close wifeless men who sometimes kiss but it doesn't bother Gwen because she's been raised to be open and accepting to all, to make her won decisions about life. She sometimes feels like something's passing her by but Uncle Jack will occasionally ruffle her hair and say all things come in time and she'll know what she needs to know, _when_she needs to know it. She's not quite sure what that even means, but she knows it will come to her.

Something that hasn't passed her by is the way that when Uncle Jack wants something like an extra scoop of ice cream (even though Tad always gives him his serving as well – Tad doesn't like ice cream, it gives him a headache) he'll just tilt his eyebrows up and say, 'Ianto,' and something in Tad's eyes will change and he'll concede. Although whenever Gwen or Owen ask him, and they do a lot, they'll see the relentlessness in his eyes and he will resolutely shake his head, saying that too much will make them ill and Uncle Jack is old enough to make his own decisions about his health. This seems unfair but Owen says he has a vague memory of Tad saying the same thing about Mamma, even though Gwen was too young to now be able to recall her face without a photograph's aid.

Tad and Uncle Jack don't talk about Mamma much, but when they do they'll sit together on the couch – a little closer than two men should, Owen said once, except Gwen can tell that he doesn't really care, he's just trying to prove that he's old enough to know the world's ways, which she supposes he does at the age of ten – and they'll both nurse a strong smelling brown liquid in their glasses which Tad tells Gwen she can't try until she is older, she wouldn't enjoy it anyway, and they murmur in low voices to each other. Gwen has seen this only once and it was by accident. She was meant to be in bed but her throat was too dry to sleep so she tip-toed out for some water and was intrigued by their voices. She knows that they know she was there listening in, but to this day no one has said anything about it. Gwen just drank her water and went back upstairs, watching as she went Uncle Jack's fingers tapping on the couch's back, his arm slung behind Tad but seeming like it wanted to be across his shoulders. Tosh had put her arm across Gwen's shoulders the time Gwen fell out of that tree Tad had told her not to climb, and she's coined on that the gesture is intended to be one of comfort.

Gwen doesn't really know what Uncle Jack thought of Mamma when she was alive; all she knows is that he and Tad were best friends when they were young boys and when Tad announced his intention to marry Uncle Jack had disappeared for a few years. He'd returned in time to see Owen being born and had sworn to Tad after Mamma died that the younger man would never have to raise the children single-handedly. Gwen knows this because she heard Uncle Jack once say to Tad in his strong "adult voice" that he meant what he said when little Gwen had just turned two (Tad has told her this is how old she was when Mamma passed), and that Tad will not now, nor ever, have to raise his children alone. He said he once returned to this place for Tad and will continue to do so every year for the children. Tad and Uncle Jack had hugged then and Gwen hadn't been too fussed over it so she went back to eating breakfast and flipping the page of her new book to see what Johnny would do next.

Gwen stops scuffing her shoes against the road and halts in her journey back home. Something has clicked. _You'll know what you need to know, when you need to know it._She knows now.

Uncle Jack is in love with Tad.

And Tad… well, she's quite sure that he is in love with Uncle Jack. It's a big thing for her to have discovered and she finds she is excited more than anything else. She resolves to keep this piece of information to herself, though. She will not tell Tad, she will not tell anyone. It is just another simple thing that goes on in her household, and she feels no different because of it. It is against the world's morals but it is perfectly okay by hers, and she trusts Tad more than she ever has before when she recalls him telling her to live by her own principles.

'I could have told you that,' Owen says a while later, because she had to tell _someone_ of her revelation, and when Uncle Jack comes into Owen's room and asks what the two rascals are up to she just laughs at him and neither of them pay any attention to that fact that he is wearing one of Tad's shirts. They're a terribly odd family after all, Gwen concludes to herself. All four of them.


End file.
